THX Chief Scientist: ...it's too late for Blu-ray

[wraggster]

Laurie Fincham, Chief Scientist at THX, talks to Home Cinema Choice Magazine about Blu-ray's chances to become a dominant format of the future.

After HD DVDs demise the UK Magazine asked him for a comment. "Personally, I think it's too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?" he told the magazine.

"In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it's all about having zero inventory. I don't want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies."

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/thx-chief-scientist-its-too-late-for-blu-ray/5379

[Triv1um]

I'm talking about DVDs (because i dont have 'any' blu-ray films (sold my casino royale that came with PSN subscription)) here -

I actually like have DVD's filling up my shelves I think they look good, and the are good to show off in a way. I would rather have a shelf full of DVD's, than just a flash drive.

Also, buying porn would suck if it was all of flash drives. Just imagine standing in a shop, you pay for a porn movie. Then you are made to stand there while it is putting a porn movie on a memory stick. While kids and there moms are walking past, trying to cover there kids eyes. You would want to be in and out. Haha

Wont happen.

[JKKDARK]

I prefer the box and disc, not a downlaoded image file. I'm sure Blu-Ray will not dissapear soon.

[Napalm-Death]

I prefer the box and disc, not a downlaoded image file. I'm sure Blu-Ray will not dissapear soon.

Coming from you, this comment amazes me.

[goity]

As if. As much as I'm sure you can get 50gb memory sticks for the same price as a blu ray disc, honest, it would just be a pain, not to mention drm crippled (I know blu ray have drm but the contents are meant to stay on the disc, not be rewritable), and I like knowing what films I own and where they are.

[jdnation]

Why this will not happen:

1. The flash drives and memory sticks of such capacity will be expensive for a Loooooooooooonnnnnng time until they come down to a resonable price for the mass market. By then blu-ray will already be established.

2. Disc and media manufacturers will fight such a move.

3. How the hell do consumers browse the titles they want? Shops are nice because they allow people to walk through their inventory rather than just browse a computer, walking around and looking at the rows of DVDs also encourage impulse buys... what if the person has left their memory stick at home? I guess they can't buy anything...

4. If the store's system crashes or has some problem, I guess nobody can buy anything... and I'd love to see them get it all back. The same can happen to a customer's inventory.

5. Digital media will require stronger mroe restrictive DRM to prevent piracy and copying. Just wait till consumers find they're having trouble lending and borrowing copies of films. lol... How will rental places stay in business?

I could go on and on... the digital era is too far away and anyone who thinks it'll happen in the next decade is simply not considering all the problems associated with it. We should list the names of these people and show them their predictions down the road to see how embarassingly none of them came true...

[Ultima Chocochu]

I prefer the box and disc, not a downlaoded image file. I'm sure Blu-Ray will not dissapear soon.

Completely agree, and JDnation you said just about everything I was thinking and more.

Most prefer boxes anyways, for obvious reasons as well
Plus I never want to have to go into a store to download something like a movie(or anything for that matter basically), I could just do that at home for probably cheaper and no gas money used.

[F9zDark]

Writing even a shit load of music to the PSP takes a long time with its memory sticks. Can anyone reasonable imagine how long it would take to download a 25gb HD movie to a memory stick?

It would take forever (assuming we have the space). So does that mean we'll have 1 Hour Blockbusters? Drop off your memory stick, come back in an hour and pick up your movie?

That will never fly. If this person is really "Chief Scientist" for THX, I'd think they'd have the wherewithall to look at the facts:

-Memory sticks have no where near the capacity as Blu-Ray discs.

-Memory sticks have just barely reached the capacity of DVDs

-Memory sticks are far more expensive than Blu-Ray disc media

-Memory sticks are still in the realm of Niche Markets; mainly Digital Cameras. They won't adopt to other mainstream markets anytime soon.

[DPyro]

Maybe he was thinking solid state drives, though those are very costly atm.

[F9zDark]

Yeah they are, far too expensive to become mainstream anytime soon. Maybe in the next 2 years SSDs will be mainstream.

[jamotto]

Could be a SSD or even a usb flash drive the latter could be done now.

[F9zDark]

Could be a SSD or even a usb flash drive the latter could be done now.

The problem I see with this is that people have come to accept that buying a movie or album on a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray means that said disc will never be used for anything else. As well, these discs are now cheap enough to produce (except Blu-ray) that the companies can basically give these discs away and only factor in the burning of the movie, the retail box, and the "movie itself" as part of the pricing.

USB Flash Drives, Flash Memory cards, and SSDs are not in this realm yet of High Space, Very Low Cost. So consumers buying movies on this medium, will essentially pay for the medium itself, on top of the movie.

If the companies offer Movies on USB Flash Drives, chances are, they will write protect the drives so we cannot use them for anything else, but consumers will WANT to use these drives for other things since the consumers DID pay for them.

I suppose the same could be said for DVDs and Blu-Rays when they first came out, but writers were in upwards of 1000s of dollars when these mediums first arrived, as well the market was used to CDs which didn't allow this functionality with games or music that we purchased in the store.

USB Flash Drives on the other hand do not require any extra, expensive technology to use to write to them, and Memory Card readers are very cheap as well, not to mention some cards come with an enclosed USB Card reader for that specific type of memory.

I just don't think it will fly, even if USB Flash Drives were a penny a gigabye. Because people will look at it as "Hey I need a flashdrive, if I buy this movie I'll get one with it" and be sadly mistaken when they can't use the flash drive for their own purposes.

[jamotto]

I just don't think it will fly, even if USB Flash Drives were a penny a gigabyte. Because people will look at it as "Hey I need a flashdrive, if I buy this movie I'll get one with it" and be sadly mistaken when they can't use the flash drive for their own purposes.

Well perhaps then the people like that would be more inclined to accept a DRM that allows the movie to be played though once or so and then is deleted, after a format the drive then could be used as a normal flash drive. Microsoft already has a DRM that works this way.